Books of the Month for January 2018

A new year, a new month, a new selection of great reads!Discover the Books of the Month for January – there’s something for everyone!

MODERN FICTIONMy Name is Leon – Kit de Waal

Evoking a Britain of the early eighties, My Name is Leon is a heart-breaking story of love, identity and learning to overcome unbearable loss. Of the fierce bond between siblings. And how – just when we least expect it – we manage to find our way home.

Join our Modern Fiction reading group and discuss this book, in Uppsala on Jan 31st and in Stockholm on Jan 23rd. Sign up in the bookshop.

CLASSICSLolly Willowes – Sylvia Townsend Warner

The story of a young woman who escapes convention by becoming a witch in this original satire about England after the Great War. Townsend Warner herself has become known as a proto-feminist and believed that women’s unused potential was the most important inter-war question.

Deliciously wry and inviting, it was her piquant plea that single women find liberty and civility, a theme that would later be explored by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own.

Why not join our Classics reading group and discuss this book? Sign up at the bookshop. Meetings in Uppsala and Stockholm on January 25th.

SHORT STORIESThe Pier Falls – Mark Haddon

The first collection of stories from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong.A seaside pier collapses. A thirty-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve.

”A superb collection of stand-out stories… The Pier Falls is unique in that every story is brilliant… It is, simply, and ultimately, an absolute pleasure to read” (Irish Independent)

In a dark corner of Southwark, victims turn to a man who despises Holmes, his wealthy clientele and his showy forensic approach to crime: Arrowood – self-taught psychologist, occasional drunkard and private investigator.

The Crenshaw Six are a small but up-and-coming gang in South Central LA who have recently been drawn into an escalating war between rival drug cartels. To outsiders, the Crenshaw Six appear to be led by a man named Garcia – but what no one has figured out is that the gang's real leader (and secret weapon) is Garcia's girlfriend, a brilliant young woman named Lola…

"The environment and neighborhood that Love creates on the page feels vivid and real...one of the best written crime dramas to be published in quite some time." – Associated Press

The year is 2454. Humanity has engineered a hard-won golden age, forged in the aftermath of a bitter conflict that wiped both religion and nation-state from the planet. Now seven factions or 'hives' co-govern the world, their rule fuelled by benign censorship, oracular statistical analytics and technological abundance. But this is a fragile Utopia – and someone is intent on pushing it to the breaking point.

We’ll discuss this book in our Sci-Fi reading group in Uppsala on Jan 23rd and in Stockholm on Jan 24th. Sign up at the bookshop.

FANTASYThe Mirror Empire – Kameron Hurley

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past – while a world goes to war with itself. In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. In the end, one world will rise – and many will perish.

1880. Witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair have opened a tea shop in Manhattan specialising in cures, palmistry and potions. When an enchanting woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences. Amidst the witches' tug-of-war over how best to nurture her gifts, Beatrice disappears. But was it by choice or by force? In a time when women were corseted, confined and committed for merely speaking their minds, is anyone really safe?

Named to ten(!) Best of the Year lists and selected as a William C. Morris Award Winner, The Serpent King is the critically acclaimed, much-beloved story of three teens who find themselves – and each other – while on the cusp of graduating from high school with hopes of leaving their small-town behind.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sportswriter comes a deeply personal account of his parents – an intimate portrait of American mid-twentieth century life, and a celebration of family love.

Richard Ford’s parents volunteered little about their early lives – and he rarely asked. Later, he pieced their stories together from anecdote, history and the occasional photograph, frozen moments linking him to another time.

In this book, Richard Ford evokes a vivid panorama of mid-twentieth century America, and an intimate portrait of family life. Written with the intelligence, precision and humanity for which Ford is renowned, Between Them is both a son’s great act of love and a redeeming meditation on family.

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General Fiction Book of the Month – March 2018

What We Lose is a short, intense and profoundly moving debut novel about race, identity, sex and death – from one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35.
Thandi is a black woman, but often mistaken for Hispanic or Asian. She is American, but doesn’t feel as American as some of her friends. She is South African, but doesn’t belong in South Africa either.
And her mother is dying...Subscribe to the book-of-the-month!

Mystery Book of the Month – March 2018

A smart, twisty crime novel filled with compelling characters set in a world that book-lovers will adore. This debut is a page-turner featuring a heroine bookseller who solves a cold case with clues from books — what is not to love?
(We'll discuss this book at the pub in our Book&Pint discussion on March 27th. Get your book & ticket at the bookshop if you want to join in!) » Read moreSubscribe to the book-of-the-month!